Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 8.djvu/265

 ITALY

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ITALY

in 17S3 by the survivors of C'astelmenardo, a town that was destroyed liy an earthqual^e. Reggio (pop. 45,U00), a beautifully situated city of Greek origin, has undergone many calamities at the hands of men and by the action of nature; it was devastated by the Romans, by Totila, by the Saracens, by the Pisans, l)y Robert Guiscard, and by the Turks, and it was al- most totally destroyed by the earthquake of 1783. It rose again, beautiful and splendid, but a more terrible earthquake, on 2S Decemljer, 190S, reduced it to a heap of ruins, under which were buried more than the half of its inhabitants. As has been seen, large cities are numerous in Italy; in fact, that country contains a greater numljer of them, in proportion to territorial extent and to population, than does any other country

.\driatic; while the plain of -Apulia and the Salentine peninsula are the driest regions of Italy. In the north the most copious rainfalls occur in October and in the spring, and then the rivers of the valley of the Po are at their highest, whereas little rain falls in win- ter. In peninsular and in insular Italy tlie winter rains, on the contrary, are heaviest, and the absence of drainage causes the waters that overflow from the river-beds to inundate the lowlands of the coast and thereby to develop malaria, from which only six prov- inces are free. The regions where this evil prevails to the greatest extent are the Tviscan Maremma, the Roman .^gro, the Basihcata, and almost the whole of Sardinia. Snow falls with frequency in the Alpine region and in the valley of the Po; it is more abundant

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in Europe; there are 65 cities with a population of more than 35,000 inhabitants each. This abundance of large cities, svirrounded by smaller ones, is of great historical and artistic importance; it is also the cause of the limiteil influence of the capital upon the life of the nation, in contrast with the rule that obtains in other countries.

Cliinatologi/. — As a whole, Italy has a good climate, due to the Alpine wall that screens it from the north- ern wind and to the sea that surrounds it on three sides. From the Tyrrhenian and the Adriatic Seas arise vapours, with alternating winds, those from the south-west (Libeccio) and those from the south-east (Scirocco), which blow from the middle of September to the end of spring and which accumulate the sea vapours on the .\pennine heights, where they are pre- cipitated in rain and snow, and whence they furnish to the soil the humidity necessary for vegetation. Unhappily, the ill-advised devastation of forests over a great portion of the Apennines has destroyed, in great measure, what provident nature had done in that connexion for the good of Italy. The mean rainfall as a rule is between 20 inches and 60 inches, but it is subject to a considerable fluctuation on account of topographical conditions; so that it increases to a maximum of 100 inches on the Alps. The Tyrrhen- ian coast has a heavier waterfall than that of the

along the Adriatic watershed than on that of the T3T- rhenian Sea.

Fauna and Flora. — Italy lies within the Palearctic region, in which live a majority of the animals use- ful to man. It lies within the Mediterranean di- vision of the floral kingdom and contains five botanical divi.^ions: (1) the .\lpine region, limited to the higher parts of the Alps and of the Apennines, be- tween the highest line of forest vegetation and the lowest line of perpetual snows; characteristic of it are the edelweiss {Leontopodium alpinum), the rhodoflen- dron and the Alpine grasses of the reed (C n perncem), the rush and the clover variety. (2) The mountain or forest region, of which the pines and beeches are characteristic. (3) The region of the Po, devoid of forests and of evergreens; here grow vines, the elm, the mulberry, the poplar, the willow, the elder, hemp, flax, etc. (4) The Mediterranean or evergreen region, which comprises the remainder of the peninsula and of which are characteristic the evergreen trees and plants, as the olive, the fir, the cypress, the orange, the lemon, the myrtle, and the oleander. (5) The submarine region, which comprises the various sea-weeds. The Italian flora contain 14,912 species, of which 325 have been introduced from Asia, Africa, and America.

Demography. — (1) The People of Italy. — It would seem that in the quaternary period man lived in Italy,